FINRA licenses individuals and admits firms to the industry, writes rules to govern their behavior, examines them for regulatory compliance, and is sanctioned by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to discipline registered representatives and member firms that fail to comply with federal securities laws and FINRA's rules and regulations.
FINRA uses technology powerful enough to look across markets and detect potential abuses. Using a variety of data gathering techniques, we work to detect insider trading and any strategies firms or individuals use to gain an unfair advantage.
In fact, FINRA processes, on average, 37 billion—and up to 75 billion—transactions every day to build a complete, holistic picture of market trading in the United States.
We also work behind the scenes to detect and fight fraud. In addition to our own enforcement actions, in 2016, we referred more than 785 fraud and insider trading cases to the SEC and other agencies. When we share information with other regulators, it leads to important actions that prevent further harm to investors.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is the largest independent regulator for all securities firms doing business in the United States. FINRA's mission is to protect investors by making sure the United States securities industry operates fairly and honestly. FINRA oversees about 4,250 brokerage firms, about 162,155 branch offices and approximately 629,525 registered securities representatives.[2][3]
FINRA has approximately 3,400 employees and operates from Washington, DC, and New York, NY, with 20 regional offices around the country.[4]
FINRA offers regulatory oversight over all securities firms that do business with the public, plus those offering professional training, testing, and licensing of registered persons, arbitration and mediation, market regulation by contract for the New York Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ Stock Market, Inc., the American Stock Exchange LLC, and the International Securities Exchange, LLC; and industry utilities, such as Trade Reporting Facilities and other over-the-counter operations.
FINRA was formed by a consolidation of the member regulation, enforcement and arbitration operations of the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Regulation, Inc., and NASD. The merger was approved by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on July 26, 2007.[5]
I feel pretty safe that FINRA approved us .
